Lay Down Your Burdens
by aethershine
Summary: Dumbledore's story doesn't end with his death.  He will have a chance to ask the question that has burdened him for most of his life, when he finally sees his sister.  But she is not the only one waiting with answers to his questions.


I started writing this story almost immediately after finishing the book, but stalled because I didn't know where I wanted it to end up. After letting it sit for months, inspiration has finally struck.

Everything is JKR's.

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Blackness overtook Dumbledore's senses. The force of his body hitting the ground was astonishing and yet painless. He was dead before he fell, lost to the killing curse, and yet some part of him remained for the plummet. He lingered with his body for a time, merely clinging to its physical presence for lack of something else to do. And then he was standing in familiar surroundings. It was his office.

The room was dark, and smelled of dry parchment and wood polish. Faint whirling and clicking could be heard coming from the various gadgets in the room. He looked out the window, and it appeared to be midday in autumn.

'How strange,' he thought. But then he realized that this was his favorite kind of day. Cool, bright sunshine, the beginning of fall term and children everywhere – it was the perfect day. He stood looking out the window when he was startled by a small child's giggle. He turned to look, knowing who he was about to see.

It was Ariana.

"Oh…," he whispered. "You – you are here." Gratitude flooded his heart and he walked towards her, arms outstretched. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you."

"Hello Albus," she said, moving closer to accept his embrace. Silently they held each other, and Dumbledore thanked creation that there could be hugging in the afterlife.

They released one another, but clasped hands. Ariana looked up at him, and Dumbledore was momentarily lost in the wonder of her child's face and perfect, clear blue eyes. She was unblemished, perfect as she had been before the Muggle attack.

He chuckled.

"You look wonderful, like nothing ever happened – like no time has passed…" A cloud crossed his face and his thoughts darkened. 'Like none of the pain you endured or your violent end ever happened,' he completed in his head.

"Time is meaningless here," she stated simply. "Right now, this particular day we are seeing here in your office could have happened a year ago, or it could be fifty years from the day of your death. You are no longer bound to time."

"But I am still an old man, the same old man who died," he stated looking down at his blackened hand. "You look younger than you were when you died."

"I identify best with this self. What I became after the attack was nothing to be remembered. You preferred to remember me like this, did you not?" She smiled up at him.

He could not help but return the smile. It was true, for him she had always been the innocent child.

"Anyway, it is not so important that I identify myself in this way. It is you that invokes this image of me, so this is how I appear," she said. "When others see you, they will choose how to see you. You may be young or old. You may be a wizard or just a man. It depends on who is doing the looking. Do you understand what I mean?"

"In part, I do understand. But what do you mean by 'when others see me?' Who will see me?"

"When someone you love dies, you may wish to go to them," she said, smiling warmly. Dumbledore felt like pure light was spreading through his chest. "You may be in dreams. And of course, you will occupy the painting."

These last words sent a chill through him. The entities in the painting had always been such a matter of fact to him that he had never thought about what the reality of inhabiting a painting would be like.

"So that is what will become of me?" Dumbledore asked, looking pensively into the dark empty canvas hanging about his desk. "Am I to just climb in and make myself comfortable for the remainder of time?"

Ariana laughed the easy laughter of a little girl who has just been told an absurd joke.

"Albus you are unbelievable!" she said, her eyes sparkling with amusement. "For all of your years, your searching for the truth and the wisdom that you have obtained as a result of it – you honestly don't know what comes next?"

Dumbledore, who had been standing in front of the canvas, now crossed the room and kneeled at her feet. His head was bowed for several seconds, and when he raised it his eyes were brimming with tears. They where not the eyes of a worldly and wise old man, rather they were the eyes of an apprehensive child, beseeching only comfort. His voice was barely a whisper and it shook with trepidation.

"No sister – I do not know what is next. I learned a long time ago to accept the inevitability of death, to view it as another chapter. But as to the content of that chapter I have only my guesses – and my fears. Please…please tell me what is to come."

Ariana turned her back and walked away, toward the pensive. She was thoughtful for a time, moments – hours maybe. And then she spoke.

"You dream, Albus?" She turned toward him, eyebrows raised. Dumbledore nodded. Ariana ran her hand along the lip of the pensive, before dipping her fingers into the cool quicksilver of memories swimming in the ether at the bottom. "When we sleep there is a part of us that is always awake – we'll call it the Dreamer. It is that part of us that plays out our role in our dreams."

Dumbledore remained on his knees, spellbound. Ariana continued speaking as she slowly stirred the content of the pensive.

"The Dreamer is what will stay behind in the painting and it also will be what remains of you in other people's memories, because the Dreamer is what you and other people recognize as Albus Dumbledore. Your face, your laugh, your memories and experiences – these make up the Dreamer. The Dreamer seems real and it is, but only during a certain time and place. In death what you really are sheds the Dreamer, as if taking off an old robe, and moves on."

Ariana lifted her hand away from the pensive, leaving its contents behind and looked down at her brother. He was kneeling with his hands folded evenly in his lap, looking up at her in wonder. While still trembling, he now had a look of deep contemplation on his face as he quietly asked,

"So what moves on – it won't have my memories or experiences? It will be…what?"

"What it was in the beginning and will be until the end," Ariana said simply.

"Ahhh…I understand," he said in a whisper and he let out a sigh. The idea of leaving behind his existence in it's entirety was comforting, as if he was being allowed to clean out a vast old cupboard filled with refuse so that he could travel unencumbered to an unknown, but promising destination.

"I won't see you there," he said calmly.

"No. I no longer exist as Ariana outside of human memory. Once you move from this transitory place, there will be no separation between us or anyone else. "Seeing" won't figure into the equation anymore as your existence as an individual entity requiring senses will end."

Dumbledore rose to his feet, and walked around to a cabinet filled with whirling, twinkling silver devices. He peered into it, carefully weighing the next question, and feeling unsure as to whether or not he wanted to know the answer.

'But I will not remember the answer,' he thought quietly. 'It will cause a terrible sting to be sure, but the knowledge will be nothing once I've moved on.'

His heart, which was in reality no longer beating, sped up in his specter's chest, and he could feel its throb in his ears. There was nothing for it – he would turn and ask, and then knowing the answer, beg release from this plane of existence, where the answer could not hurt him.

"It was not you, Albus," Ariana whispered. The words settled on him like snow, chilling and yet protective, as if covering up the evidence of the burden he had long suffered.

"It was Grindelwald," he murmured and felt tears sting the back of his throat.

"Yes. Pass through the veil with an easy mind, knowing that you did not take my life."

"But if not for my arrogance…my weakness, you would never have been in danger," Dumbledore cried, all of his emotions suddenly rising to the surface. Ariana looked placidly defeated. She sighed and smiled gently up at him.

"I can be of no further help to you. You must pass on, but it will be in your own time. I implore you to let this go and not linger. It is time for me to go." She moved nearer, reaching out her child's hand and grasping his, an old man's. "Be at peace, brother."

And she was gone.

Dumbledore stood still, tears streaming down his face. His anger had abated, and was replaced by dull frustration and irritability. His will to move on was inadequate to the task. He wanted to know things – mainly the fate of Harry. He longed to know whether his plans had aided in Voldemort's destruction or… not.

It was in his mind to seek answers to his questions, when suddenly he was standing in his family home in Godric's Hollow. He looked down at his hands, which were well and whole. But they were more than that – they were the hands of a young man. He reached up to touch his face and there found not the beard or glasses of an old wizard, but rather the unwrinkled flesh of his youth.

"This is an interesting development," he chuckled, running his fingers through his thick wavy hair.

"Albus?" asked a weakened voice.

And as it had been with his sister, Dumbledore turned toward the voice, knowing to whom it belonged.

"Hello Gellert."


End file.
